Chapter 13: Xain
She smiled before charging. The question as to why circulates my mind as her blade meets Vice’s with a heavy clang. Vice turns around and attempts another attack, this one stronger than the previous. Vice, either stunned or amused, swings back around and looks at Izzy. She strafes around Izzy, twirling her sword, for at least 10 seconds before launching forward with a downward slice—maybe intended for Izzy’s head.
Izzy ducks and spins out of the way, swinging her blade and cutting Vice’s arm. It’s a teaser cut—nothing really fatal past bandaging—but Vice swings and thrusts her sword at Izzy angrily. This happens for the next minute, until Izzy dodges out of range of the attacks and runs towards clear ground. Vice, with a furious look in her eyes, runs after her.
I begin to wonder why Izzy is running. She never runs this much—this early—in a match, especially a one-on-one fight. Izzy wouldn’t run away, she would stick it out. She would strafe, she would dodge, she would stay in the fight as much as possible. She’s even been known to fight off multiple opponents with nothing more than a hunting knife. She would never run. Why now? Unless...
“What’s the longest Vice has ever trained?” I ask. I look around for anyone who might know. There’s just silence coming from everyone in the room. I look at Katya, who has pretty much been my semi-expert on Vice. Surely she would know something.
“She usually is allowed two hours to train,” Katya finally utters out, “but she only uses about an hour of it altogether with weapons and dummies. Her training stops with either lack of dummies, when time is out, or if she goes berserk.”
“No sparring partner?” I poke around. Kat’s face is filled with confusion. I look around and see everyones eyes shifting confusedly between me and Katya.
“Everyone’s afraid of her,” Katya answers after about five seconds.
“And her matches usually last for how long?” I press on.
“Five, maybe ten minutes,” Kat almost seems angry. “What are you getting at, Xain?”
I look back at the screen, where Izzy is still for the most part running and dodging Vice’s attacks. She occasionally bounces off of the walls, somersaults, or takes a swipe at her with a knife or dagger. I turn to everyone else, who is staring at me.
“Vice has never fought against an actual trained warrior,” I say. “Her style is savage, her experience is limited only to dummies and other limited fighters, she’s never moved around in a match for more than ten minutes at a time, everyone is deeply terrified of her—everyone but Izzy. She must have realized all of this before the match.”
“Which is why she smiled before she came off of the platform,” I look down at Jada, who is half smiling nervously—I forgot she was right there between me and Abi. I place an arm around her and smile.
“Perhaps,” I say, staring into Jada’s big, light-brown eyes. “She knows that compared to other fighters in their class, she’s more advanced.”
Abi stares at the screen for a while, and then her eyes widen. “She’s tiring out Vice.”
We all stare at the screen, where Izzy is still dodging Vice’s moves and swings. Vice’s attacks are getting less focused and precise as time goes on. Her movements also begin to become slower and you can see that she’s breathing harder and is no longer standing with the same straightness as she was at the beginning. She looks more and more disoriented, and her attacks show the loss of stamina. Izzy, however, is still fighting strong with her attacks—tiny cuts on parts of Vice’s body.
“Xain,” Jada calls me from under my arm, “why is Izzy just cutting at Vice? Why doesn’t she just open deeper wounds or stab Vice, maybe kill her?”
“Maybe,” I start, and then have to think to myself, “maybe she’s sending a message.”
“About what?” Abi answers back quickly. She tears her eyes off of her sister for a brief second—Izzy swings her blade at Vice’s mouth guard and she twists around—then turns back to the screen, but still awaits my answer.
“That even the biggest and toughest warrior can be killed, maybe,” I throw as a suggestion, “Maybe that she doesn’t have to follow the grand rules of these games.”
“Or she may just see the greater victory as overcoming as an underdog, so she doesn’t need to kill her.” Everyone looks at Clay, who hasn’t said a word since he hugged Izzy.
“Makes since,” I remember my fight with Brute and agree.
“Fifteen minutes,” Katya announces biting her lips and turning from the screen, “They’ve been fighting for fifteen minutes.”
Vice is almost out of it, but is holding herself as if she hasn’t lost any stamina. She makes a lunge forward in an attempt to stab Izzy, but Izzy deflects the attack and slices above Vice’s right knee—much more deeply than the other cuts. Vice yells in pain and collapses on one knee—left knee. She strains to stand back up, but can’t bring her body up. Izzy, instead of driving a sword right through her, kicks Vice in the chest knocking her down. Her eyes are shut, and for the moment, she seems unconscious. Izzy begins to walk away from Vice’s body.
There’s moderate cheers from the arena crowd—maybe could have been more if over half of them hadn’t lost their money—but there seems to be a joyous celebration in our tiny area. Jada wraps around my. Chest and is nearly smashed by a very excited Abi, who is around my neck. Melissa opens the door to exit when Clay suddenly shouts for us to look at the screen.
Vice’s eyes have flung open, and this time, they are deep red. The announcer has just gotten out “Ladies and Gentlemen” when Vice gets up and grabs hold of her facemask. She has it ripped off—there’s a huge blood stain where the mask once was, maybe where Izzy hit her—and has a knife drawn as Izzy begins to sense something wrong.
She has just turned when the knife whizzes by and catches her right above the eye. Izzy drops to the ground and her sword flies about three yards from reach. The next moment, Izzy has a knife thrown at Vice, but it whizzes by her ear. Vice leaps on top of Izzy and begins to throw rutheless punches at Izzy before deciding to simply strangle her with her bare hands. Izzy, having spiked and ragged gloves, hits Vice across the face a few times, causing her left eye to spurt out blood.
The next part happens too quickly to comprehend. Izzy rolls over and pulls a knife and attempts to use it—maybe it’s aimed for her throat—but Vice catches Izzy’s arm before it could lower, and kicks her backwards. Vice grabs the knife from the ground and hobbles for Izzy. Izzy backs up and picks another knife from her side and regains her footing. Vice leaps for Izzy, but misses. Just as Vice turns around and readies another attack, Izzy has a knife thrown at her neck. It misses, but catches her collar-bone. Vice’s knife escapes wobbly out of her hands and catches part of Izzy’s windpipe. Izzy grabs her neck, which is starting to leak blood, and stumbles down to her knees. She’s crawling as Vice finds a sword and approaches Izzy to finish her, but Izzy has one final knife in her abdomen and she collapses before she can get in range. Izzy then goes still.
The crowd is near in uproar—not cheering, but shouting angrily because the judges and announcer can’t declare a winner. The biggest betted-on fight, and everyone lost—no matter which side they were for. I look around and see that Clay and Melissa have already left the room. They are shouting for the rest of us to come to the elevator.
The elevator opens on the basement of the arena just as medics are headed down the hall with Izzy and Vice’s bodies. Vice’s face guard has been replaced with a new one. Abi turns pale at the site of her sister’s body. Clay’s does, too. Jada and Melissa are first to approach the body. Jada looks terrified as she grabs Izzy’s bloodied hand.
“How is she?” Melissa asks as she tries to stay calm.
“She has a chance of survival,” a medic answers as he covers Izzy’s throat, “The blade missed major blood vessels, but we’re rushing to get her to the infirmary.” With that, another medic places a tube down Izzy’s throat and turns a switch on the machine—a respirator.
Izzy and Vice are carted off into separate elevators and sent off to the EIT. Abi hugs me tightly, but no tears come. I just stroke her hair and cheek as we stand there. Next thing I know, Katya hugs around both of us. Clay follows and hugs around the back of Abi. I look at Jada and Melissa and extend my arm. Jada nearly runs to them. Melissa’s a little slower, but she ends up over Jada. We stand there, hugging, until Melissa suggests going to eat until we knew more on Izzy’s situation.
The dining hall seems fraught with conversations about the fight. One boy between mouthfuls says that the fight was never going to be topped and that it would have been better if Izzy hadn’t played around and just killed Vice. His friend agrees and says that Izzy deserved what happened to her. Abi looks as stiff as ever. I have never seen this from her.
We get our food and sit down at one table. No one really says much at our table, but all around us, the conversations about the battle continue. There are praises, insults, and rumors. The worst of the rumors is that Izzy is dead and Vice is still living. Abi, who is across from me, is leaning down on her hand and stirring her stew. She hasn’t touched her meal at all exept to move it around.
I reach across the table and touch the hand she’s stirring with and she stops. She looks up and grabs my hand with a slight smile. I smile back, but even now I worry about her. It’s clear that she’s holding back her emotions and thoughts. I can see she’s holding back tears. She has a straight face on, but she can’t hide the pain from me—not even if she tried. We look at each other for about ten seconds before Melissa rubs Abi’s shoulder.
“Are you going to be alright?” Melissa asks in a mellow voice.
Abi nods while still holding my hand. “I’ll be fine.”
There’s a long silence, and then Kat chimes in, “Would you like us to check on Izzy’s status for you?”
“I can go,” Abi lets go of my hand, “She’s my sister, I’ll be alright.”
“Well what if we go with you?” Clay asks in an anxious voice that suggests he’s wanting to see Izzy.
“I can handle it,” there’s a bit more grief on that sentence, “I’ve been through a lot worse.”
“We want to go,” Jada says softly, but turns her head, “We love her, too.”
Abi looks at Jada with sorrowful eyes. Still holding back tears, she says, “They should be done with a diagnosis by now.”
Abi gets up, leaving her whole tray on the table. She takes one step, looks back, and says, “You coming or not?”
We all get up as she walks off and begin following her to the infirmary. I look down at Jada and just smile. This girl either has spunk or a healing heart.
We’re placed in a waiting area while we await for a medic to give us a status on Izzy. Melissa isn’t even allowed to go into the area they are operating on her in. She just sits with us and holds onto Jada. Clay—maybe this is because Jada’s taken by Melissa—is leaning on Abi. She doesn’t seem to mind, she never has. She actually loves Clay. I’m pacing around restlessly. This is drawing on too much. The clock seems broken, though I know it isn’t. Kat seems as restless as I do, but at least she’s sitting down.
“Will you sit down?” Katya finally blurts out at me. “You’re making me nervous.”
“Sorry,” I scoot to sit on an extra spot on the bench next to Kat, “Izzy’s never been her before, especially not this long or this seriously injured.”
“She’ll be fine,” Katya answers without even looking at me, “You heard what the medic in the hall told us. The blade missed major blood vessels, there’s a chance she’ll survive.”
“Yes, but at what damage?” I ask back. Every eye is glued on me now. “She might not be able to fight anymore. She may have to live on a respirator for the rest of her life.”
“But at least she’ll be alive,” Abi pushes out. I can see her eyes forming tears, but she shakes them back. “At least she’ll be here.”
I sigh and think about those words. Izzy may be damaged for the rest of her life, but at least she’ll be with us.
I jump up at the sight of a medic approaching us with a clipboard. The rest follow after me. The medic looks at us with a solid face, so I can’t tell if it’s good news or bad news that’s going to come from his mouth. Finally, he sighs and begins to speak.
“Your friend is very luck. She’ll be one of the rare minimums that will live after a fatal injury like that,” he states.
We all let out a sigh of relief at his words, but I maintain my look on the medic, who looks like he’s wanting to say something else but can’t figure out how to say it.
“Is there anything else that we should know?” I ask. The medic looks down at his clipboard—not to check anything, but as if trying to gather the guts to say what he needs to say—while everyone else waits for him to tell us what more there is to the situation.
“Isabelle suffered the severing of her larynx. We were able to remove the excess blood from her lungs and seal her air way,” he pauses and sighs before looking up at us, then continues, “but she might remain a mute for the remainder of her life.”
“In other words,” Abi draws a breath, “she will never be able to talk again.”
The medic nods with a sigh, and Abi just looks away.
“There’s no way to fix it?” I ask hoarsely.
The medic shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry. But we are nearly done with her, and she’ll be able to breathe on her own with little aid.”
“How about fighting?” Abi asks while hugging Clay, “Will she be able to do that?”
“Like I said, she’ll need a little aid in breathing, so after about a month or two of therapy, she’ll be able to resume fighting. You’ll be able to visit her tomorrow if you like.”
The medic’s pager goes off and he walks away, and before anyone can get a word out, the monitors turns on with the capital anthem and seal. After the anthem ends, there’s an amber-skinned lady covered in all purple—make-up and clothing—along with a man in a golden suit with the same color hair, eye-shadow, lip-stick, and nails—or I think it’s a man. Their names flash on the bottom of the screen after a second: Voletta Moradati and Sydney Oradior
“Good afternoon, citizens of America,” the purple lady begins with a cheery smile, “I hope you enjoyed that surprising match provided by District C-5 today. What a splendid example of giving it your all.”
C-5. She means us—she means Izzy and Vice. Abi is glaring at the screen, and it’s not hard to imagine what she’s remotely even thinking.
“I agree, Voletta,” the man in gold answers in a near high-pitched voice, “When Vice got up and ripped off her mask, I almost screamed.”
“And who did you bet on?” Voletta asked her associate with a grim smile on her face.
“Let’s just say, I amost got an investment back on my money,” Sydney lets an even grimmer smile on his face and they both laugh.
“Well, following that splendid fight, the judges, along with the president himself, decided to call it a close draw and give a few rookies a chance to get into the action,” Voletta lets out an excited squeal.
“That’s right, C-5 rookies,” Sydney says with a wide smile, “After much training, you’ll get to finally show the world what you have in your arsenal. Don’t worry, more experienced fighters will assist you, and it will be a non-deadly game.”
“So without further ado, here are your fighters for next weeks game.”
Voletta and Sydney go through a list of names of boys and girls who would be making an appearance. They do it by teams—red and blue—of twenty. I know a few names, but one catches my eye and my heart stops almost completely: Fighter number 503, Jada Anderson.